


Tony Stark Screws Up: Part Two

by Cardigan_Quincy



Category: Doctor Who, Iron Man (Movies), Layton Kyouju Series | Professor Layton Series, Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies), Portal (Video Game), RWBY, Sherlock (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2018-10-11 11:54:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10464309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cardigan_Quincy/pseuds/Cardigan_Quincy
Summary: (Tony Stark Screws Up: Part One was Age of Ultron :P)Tony Stark gets fed up with the Avengers and decides to form a new team, made up of the greatest minds from across the multiverse. He gets what he wants, but he didn’t count on getting trapped inside Aperture, or on how annoying these other geniuses would be. In order to get back to their own worlds, these brilliant minds must find a way to survive GLaDOS’s deadliest tests — and each other.~Cardi





	1. Chapter One

He supposed it all started with the latest argument with Cap — one of many. Long story short, Cap couldn’t take his wit and tried to shut down the conversation. Tony did the only natural thing, by biting back with more sass.

So now here he was, brooding in his workshop.

He wiped his hands on a rag, looked around at the glorious mess of productivity. Today it didn’t make him feel the least bit better. It was stupid — the Avengers were the best team ever assembled. They were his family, his home, practically his entire life at this point.

But ever since that whole business with the accords, and even after they’d began to fix the mess he’d had such a large part in creating, things were different. Strained.

Tony was under no illusions as to his part in the matter. He and Cap were the primary instigators. The others may have butted heads, but he doubted that things would have gotten anywhere near as bad if he or Cap had just given in. There were some people calling it the Avengers’ Civil War.

After signing the accords and finding out what it was actually like, Tony had come to the conclusion that maybe he was the one who should have been the one to compromise — turned out, people in government didn’t have any more of a clue than anyone else, and sometimes less — but there were times like this where he really wanted someone who could take his sass. Sass back, maybe. It wouldn’t hurt _his_ feelings.

His gaze fell on the orange infinity stone, nestled in a tiny pile of fabric, safe under a tiny glass case.

No one had dared to touch the thing since it came into their possession. The governments involved in the accords had been forced to compromise and declare Stark Tower neutral ground, where they wouldn’t butt in and mess with anything and Tony could upgrade his security systems and keep them out with impunity, so they didn’t even know for sure that it was there.

He hadn’t wanted it there, had made it a point to give it a wide berth, but now he wondered why it was in here at all, especially after the Ultron incident. Rationally, he knew that that this was the safest place for it. It was probably a symbol of his team’s trust, a way of saying that they knew he wasn’t going to do anything stupid with it, like turn it over to a government or make Ultron II. But right now, while he was in this mood, it felt like a dare.

_You wouldn’t dare mess with this again. You obviously can’t handle it. See how much we can boss you? See how tame you’ve become?_

He walked over, picked up the jewel in its tiny case and cradled it in the palm of his hand. Messing with the last stone had been a bad idea, yeah. But he had created _life_.

He wasn’t going to try that again. He’d learned his lesson. But who said anything about gathering lives that were already there? The greatest minds of the multiverse, gathered together to form a new, incredibly brilliant team. They wouldn’t even need to officially make it a team. If they were all as smart as he was, they would have enough sense to work together. Like gears in a clock.

He tossed the stone gently in his hand, then turned and got to work.

The trick was to make a scanner that would get an understanding of his personality, and then use the stone to search for similar people across the multiverse, like a cosmic search engine.

As he began whipping together plans, his mind settled back into the content, near-perfect focus he was so comforted by. His fingers and mind flew in unison, and he was sure he’d missed a meal or two by now. But food hardly mattered when he had a project like this.

He emerged from his near-trance some time later. It was dark, and there was a plate of cold food sitting on one of his workbenches. He realised, with a dull sort of awe, that he’d probably had an entire short conversation with Pepper that he didn’t even remember. No wonder she could get so frustrated with him. But it was finished. The scanner, a silvery thing like a high tech crown, sat in front of him. The program was written. The stone sat in its own little machine, ready for him to use.

He put on the headpiece. He should have tested it first, of course, and the rebellion that had been simmering had just about simmered out, but it had been replaced by the feverish anticipation of discovery. He didn’t know of any way to test it aside from someone else trying it first, and there was no way he was going to let that happen.

Just imagine six or seven other Steves running around. Or Natashas. Or Clints.

That would be terrifying.

He flexed his shoulders, then lifted the hoop onto his head and fired up the program.

###

He put a hand up on the damp wall to steady himself.

This was not his wall. It was stone — not like something made on purpose, but rough, uneven, like a cave wall. He looked up and found that he was kneeling on a rock ledge about six feet wide, and sloping a bit near the edge. A chasm opened above him, with huge, decaying spheres suspended between the walls by steel rebar, fading into blue-grey fog in the distance.

A voice boomed out from the ceiling.

_As CEO of Aperture Science, I’d like to take the time to remind you that any interdimensional travel is strictly prohibited in the workspace, as well as inside any tests not specifically designed for it. So if you think you’re being clever by falling in here, you’ve got another thing coming. These messages may be pre-recorded but by this point, my people have honed in on you, you Black Mesa scumbag —_

_Mr. Johnson…_ said a woman’s voice.

_...Right. On the off chance that you’re NOT Black Mesa, you’re more than welcome to run through a few of our tests before you hop back to wherever you came from. We’re doing great science here, and if you’d like we’d be more than happy to set up a sister facility in the dimension of your choice._

Tony eased upright, glancing around at his new surroundings. _Well, I screwed up._ Whatever this place was, it seemed that the people who worked here were off their rockers. Then again, he had dropped in from another dimension...

He sniffed, then gagged. An acidic, dusty, back-of-the-throat smell seemed to cover everything like a mist. The voice, too confident, had boomed from somewhere high above. The place was probably massive, much bigger than he could make out from here. Sounds milled, just above normal ambient noise. Humming, creaking, gurgling of some unseen liquid, the clatter of pebbles falling off the rock face and hitting objects below. Behind him, there seemed to be muffled voices. It was just slightly too quiet to be certain.

The wall opened up into a cleft a few feet behind him, and, having nowhere else to go but off the ledge and into a bottomless pit, Tony decided to follow it. The voices steadily grew more distinct, and the walls turned from rock to industrial cement, painted blue around the bottoms. These, too, ended up giving way to windowed office rooms.

Inside one of these rooms he found the people. There were about seven or eight of them, in very different outfits. One was dressed as a pirate — oh he hoped to goodness that it wasn’t a cosplayer — two were in long coats, another had a top hat, another in torn up dress clothes. And they weren’t talking. They were bickering.

Black Coat spied Tony through the glass. “There’s another one.”

Brown Coat whirled around, and in doing so, revealed another figure sitting on a wheelie chair on the far side of the group — this one, not so unfamiliar.

Loki, who was slumped on a wheelie chair like a rebellious kindergartner put in time out, glaring pure annoyance into the middle distance.

Tony stepped into the room. “I’m just going to assume you’ve already done introductions. I’m Tony Stark, in case any of you have been living under a rock and don’t know my face on sight.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the wait guys. I don't really have a good excuse, and after so long this chapter doesn't feel good enough to make up for it. But it's here, at least. I hope you enjoy. 
> 
> Also, I apologize if Sparrow is a bit OOC, I've... never actually watched the movies.

The amount of glaring going on in this one room was… a bit discouraging, to be honest. Tony had taken the crown off and hooked it over his forearm on the way in, and was fiddling with it absently as the others talked.

After he’d made his opening statement, three of the people tried to scold him for it, then got upset with each other for interrupting. Top Hat had tried to intervene, the strange ragged well-dressed man had looked on, half amused, and Loki didn’t move, aside from raising his eyebrows and huffing through his nose.

“All right, all right!” yelled Brown Coat. Everyone else trailed off. “We’re all very cross. Now that that’s been established, maybe we could stop shouting and actually work out what’s going on.”

Tony straightened. “I know why at least some of you are here.” He waved the crown.

There was a pause, then Brown Coat said, “Well?”

“What, you’re not going to ask me how I did it?” Tony asked.

“He just did,” said Loki. “If you could continue instead of showing off, then perhaps the few of us that had any dignity to begin with can escape this situation without losing any more.”

“What I don’t understand,” said Tony, turning to him, “is how you’re here. Shouldn’t you be either locked up or out destroying a world somewhere?”

Loki opened his mouth to respond, but Brown Coat cut him off. “Just tell us how that device works and we’ll sort the rest out later.”

“It’s part of a machine that I made to identify and gather people with similar personalities to mine, your highness.”

“Across the universes?” asked Brown Coat.

“Across the multiverse,” Tony confirmed.

Brown coat looked at him like he’d suddenly sprouted an arm out of his chest. “What did you use? How did it work? You look to be twenty-first century human. At that point your species hadn’t even done much with space travel, let alone —”

“Alright, so thought I would be okay, not knowing your name, but it turns out thinking of you as Brown Coat is actually pretty irritating, so if you would be so kind as to tell me your name, that would be fantastic.” Tony leaned back against the doorframe.

“I’m the Doctor,” he said, with a pointed look at Black Coat.

“‘The Doctor’ cannot be a name!” shouted Black Coat.

“You’re one to talk, _Sherlock Holmes_. What sort of heartless parent names their child ‘Sherlock’?”

“Aaannnnd… here we go again.” said the pirate.

“Will you all just shut up?” asked Tony, politely.

“And why would they ever do that?” asked Loki. “You said it yourself, they're similar to you. It's small wonder they can't get along. You can hardly stand yourself.”

Sherlock and the Doctor paused in their argument, and turned towards them.

“Well that's a pity,” said the pirate. “Must be bloody awful to hate yourself. Not that I'd have any experience.”

Tony glared and opened his mouth to retaliate, but right at that moment, someone tapped him on the shoulder. More accurately, some _thing_. An elongated white egg thing, standing halfway through the doorway, with an orange glowing eye and skeletal black and white limbs. It was inches from his face, and Tony took one startled step back.

Someone yelled, and a pencil sharpener came flying across the room and clocked the bot above its optic. It squawked, glanced in the offending direction, and ran back down the hall.

Tony turned toward the culprit. It was the pirate, who at that particular point in time was wound up for another pitch, this time with a stapler. When he was sure the robot had gone, he lowered his arm and said, “If we’re all supposed to be like you, then what the hell was that thing?”

“There is no way,” said Tony, “that that thing is here because of me.”

“While I doubt that there's much of a difference in your intelligence, a more logical explanation would that the creature is native to this universe.”

The Doctor gave Sherlock a look. “That machine could be an absolute genius and you would have no idea.”

“Fair point. You're a complete idiot and you have no idea.”

“Perhaps we should follow the creature,” spoke up Top Hat. “We've spent enough time in this room to know that there's nothing to help us here.”

“Finally,” said the Doctor. “Someone who can use their brain. Let's go.”

The group got up, albeit sulkily, and filed out the door, and farther down the hall. Tony ended up next to the ragged dress-clothes man. “So you're Tony,” he said, in a gruff voice.

“That's me.”

“The name’s Qrow Branwen. Pleasure to meet you.” He reached his right hand over, and Tony shook it.

The hall wound through outdated offices, with broken windows and dusty, sterile lighting. The place was a maze of old computers, desks, and decay. Water dribbled from damp places in the ceiling and occasionally sprayed from broken pipes.

“So, where do you think we are?” Asked Qrow.

Tony shrugged. “I'd planned on everyone being brought to my universe.”

“And this isn't it?”

“If it is, it's nowhere near where I started out.”

Qrow nodded and left it at that.

It soon became clear that they weren't going to find the bot again. The place was enormous — possibly much, much larger than they'd ever be able to explore, had they wanted to. Tony began to wonder if people had even worked here, and if so, how they’d found their desks. Or did they just never leave?

“Well... I suppose we should continue our venture upwards, if we aren't going to be able to locate the creature,” said Top Hat. “Has anyone seen a lift or staircase?”

The Doctor whipped out a silver wand of some kind and scanned their surroundings, the wand making a little buzzing noise as he did so. After a moment he stopped, smacked the device a few times, and sighed. “Still not working…”

Sherlock looked completely done, while Loki seemed unimpressed.

Qrow spoke up. “We could always see if we could bust through one of the weakened places in the ceilings or walls. There seems to be a lot in those office rooms.”

“Well, we could,” said the Doctor, “But without my sonic working we have no idea where we’d end up. I’d like to at least try to find out what this place is before we throw ourselves off the deep end.”

Tony looked around, and realized he couldn’t see the pirate anymore. “Hey guys, has anyone been keeping an eye on the delusional pirate man?”


	3. Chapter 3

“Come on, Sherlock. Maybe he’ll have been killed and then you’ll get to solve a murder.” Tony may have been one of the people wanting to go after the pirate, but that didn’t mean he had to be happy with it.

“Don’t joke about that,” said the Doctor.

“If that disgusting mortal wanders away again once we find him, I’ll be the one to kill him, and I will take great pleasure in it.”

“I said not to joke about that.”

“My dear Doctor, I would never joke about something like this.”

Tony never thought he’d see the day when he’d agree with Loki. Then again, the god of mischief might actually carry out his threat… still. The sentiment was shared. 

“As if I could solve anything in a place as upside down as this,” said Sherlock.

“We’re trapped in a cave in another universe and you’re upset that it doesn’t line up with your version of normal? Seriously? Hate to break it to you man but most things aren’t going to make much sense here.” Tony shot a look towards Sherlock. “Or is Sherlock Holmes too stupid to understand anything outside of London?”

“Your unfathomable stupidity is the reason we were transported here in the first place!”

“Unf— like you could ever have come close to thinking up, let alone actually creating something that complex.”

“It would never have even occured to me to try something so obviously doomed to failure.”

“Failure? We’re here, aren’t we?”

“And you call that success?”

Top Hat opened his mouth to speak— 

A screech, huge and terrible, like an entire building being ripped apart, cut off his words. The ground shuddered, pebbles showered from the ceiling. A few feet away, a pipe burst, coating a section of the corridor in foul blue goop. 

After a moment, the tremors stopped, and the group slowly got to their feet.

“That didn’t feel like an earthquake. That was artificial,” said the Doctor. “Wherever we are, they have access to pretty massive machinery.”

“But was it intentional, or a malfunction?” mused Top Hat.

“And which would be more beneficial to us?” added Qrow.

“I suppose that would depend on what the inhabitants’ intentions are.” Top Hat glanced over at the blue goop. “And I think we should move on, before we find out whether that substance is as toxic as it smells.”

The smell was putrid, like rotting plastic, sticky and harsh in the back of his nose. When he swallowed, the stench seemed to scratch at his throat. 

They didn’t get a chance to investigate. At that very moment, the orange-eyed bot from before came around the corner and warbled — whether a greeting or a threat, or both, was hard to say. It had a deathgrip on the pirate’s arm, and standing on the other side of the man was another bot, similar in style, with a blue eye and a smaller, rounder build.

“In my defence these things are remarkably strong.”

Blue waved at Tony and the rest, and gestured for them to follow. Orange turned and took the pirate along with it down the hall, Blue following close behind. 

Tony looked at Qrow, who shrugged, and started after the bots. Tony fell into step beside him, and he could hear the others following behind. 

“Just so we’re all on the same page, this is almost definitely a trap,” Tony announced.

There were a few murmurs of agreement, and one “No, really?” from Sherlock, which Tony elected to ignore.

The bots led them through a mind-bending maze of halls, that eventually turned to catwalks, leading them through maintenance areas one minute, climbing along assembly lines the next, and always tending upwards. Somehow, it felt like too much to hope for that they'd be leading them out of this place. Most of the technology looked completely impossible — from everything Tony could observe, it simply should not work, and yet here it was. He could sense life in the walls, in the powerful hum and just slightly aware movements of every piece of technology, no matter how much he tried to believe the rational side of his brain. He spent his entire life building incredible machines, building things other people could only dream of — and yet here, he understood nothing but that, somehow, something had gone very very wrong.

When you spend your whole life on something, you learn to read it. If you spend your life painting, you understand better the work of other artists. If you spend your life writing, you understand what goes on in the mind of another author. And if you spend your life making machines — sentient or no — you start being able to read the designer’s attitude in their work.

There was a darkness here. This place was alive, but crippled. Somehow, this massive metallic ecosystem was broken, in pain, and willing to consume anything that happened to tread on its wounds.

Orange and Blue led them through a massive interlocking web of pipes, which shuttled grey cubes to unknown destinations. Tony ducked under a pipe and went back to thinking.

That Cave Johnson man was in charge of this place, or had been at some point. And you only had to hear his audio messages to know he was a special kind of intelligent — the kind that verges impressively close to insanity, or stupidity, or both. But if Tony had to make a guess, he’d say that even Cave Johnson hadn’t planned for whatever had ended up happening. 

It was an uncomfortable idea. If the guy who had been crazy enough to start this place had somehow been out-crazied by whatever came next, what were they getting themselves into?

What had _ he _ gotten them all into?

 

#*#*#

 

It seemed like days before the bots finally stopped walking. Tony’s feet felt like they were about to detach themselves and leave to find someone who would be nicer to them. Qrow seemed only marginally better, and there were at least two people trying to hide their heavy breathing behind him. Hopefully whatever came next wouldn’t require them to do any running.

The wall in front of them seemed more ominous than the rest of the facility. By this point, Tony had already seen a mad number of things, from thousands of seemingly pointless cubes flowing through pipes, to huge pits that vanished into the darkness and fog before you could see the bottom, but this wall creeped him out more than anything else. He decided, very definitely, that he did not want to see what was behind it. 

Of course, that’s exactly where the bots wanted them all to go. 

Tony hung back as the others — who were, at least, appropriately uneasy — filed past him towards a certain portion of the wall that the bots pointed out. It unfolded as Qrow got close. Tony couldn’t see what was on the other side; the hole was too small and he was too far to the side, but he could see everyone’s reactions as they went in.

They all looked up.

Something big then.

Staying outside was sounding better every second. He could avoid the bots, scavenge scrap metal, make himself a suit, rescue the others and blast his way out. He could fix that glorified tiara that brought them all here and put them back, then smash the stupid thing and melt down the pieces, and the stone—

Blue grabbed him roughly by the arm and yanked him towards the opening. Tony stumbled the last few steps through, only narrowly managing not to fall.

A glowing yellow eye, sinister, calculating, and worst of all, _interested_. In them. In _him_. 

_ “Welcome to Aperture Science,”  _ she said.  _ “Are you ready to do your first test?” _

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone!
> 
> Just wanted to say that this fic is written for and dedicated to my awesome friend, Naomi. She actually had the original idea for this, so yeah, she's pretty amazing. If any of you want to leave a nice message for her in the comments/reviews/whatever they're called on this site, that would be totally awesome. :)
> 
> ~Cardi


End file.
